Monday, September 29

Hakodate is located at the south end of the island of Hokkaido. Founded in 1454, it is the capital city of the Oshima Subprefecture of Japan.

The first order of business this morning was to clear Japanese Immigration. It was a very high tech process, and they brought lots of agents and equipment on board so things went very quickly. In one door of the Queen’s Lounge, pick up passport and previously filled out Japanese Immigration form. On to an agent who did a quick photo scan of the passport, and checked the form. Then you put your index fingers on another scanner while another piece of the same machine took your photo. Another machine spit out a little card to carry with you while on shore. Then as you left, you handed your passport back to the ship’s personnel...all done in about the same time as it took me to type this!

Neither Jill nor I had booked a tour here, so after lunch we took a free shuttle into downtown. There was a whole bevy of young girls in uniforms waiting at the downtown Information Center. Two of them guided us on a bit of a walk around. We stopped briefly at a place called Hotel Sea Bourne down a side street. It was extremely elegant! Kellie and Paula...if you have someone headed to Hakodate, I
think this would be a lovely place to stay.

The local mascot or official fish of Hakodate is the squid. This photo is of a manhole cover near the Information Center. After our walk, we enjoyed a nice cup of freshly brewed tea in the Information Center and admired works of local artists on the walls. The one thing we never did find was any kind of souvenir shop for postcards and similar items. Oh well...

This evening there was a local folkloric presentation which included a woman dancing then a group singing folk songs and playing samisans. The latter were quite good with the whole group running the gamut of ages from children to grandparents.

Tuesday, September 30

Aomori is situated at the north end of Honshu island, only about 40 miles from Hakodate. There is even a tunnel between the two islands that goes down to 800 feet deep and accomodates the bullet trains. Aomori was founded in 1889 with about 28,000 residents and now has over 300,000. It has been rebuilt twice; once after a big fire in 1910 and again after WWII. This photo is from our ship and shows the spectacular Produce and Tourism Center (ASPAM) and the stunning bridge nearby. The yellow hulled ship on the right is the Memorial Ship Hakkoda-maru.

Like Hakodate, Aomori is a very vey clean and neat city. I walked into downtown and saw not one speck of trash of any kind. I actually walked almost a mile...probably a new record for me since all my joint replacements. Of course it took me a while what with stops to rest, but I think this bodes well for my being able to keep up with the overland tour which begins tomorrow